All the highs and lows from the ALGS Split 2 Playoffs.
After eight intense matches on the final day of the ALGS Split 2 Playoffs, it was DarkZero Esports who once again lifted yet another title on an international LAN. The reigning ALGS champions looked all out of sorts during the first few days but rose to the occasion on the final day. As for the Split 1 Playoff champions TSM, they had to contend for second after one of its greatest performances on LAN so far.
However, there was plenty more to unpack from the ALGS Split 2 Playoffs than just DarkZero's iconic victory. From frozen computers to bugged-out live games and even an inconsistent livestream, it's safe to say that the ALGS Split 2 Playoffs will not be forgotten anytime soon. While its previous edition a few months ago featured plenty of visa-related issues, this time around, it was focused more on the game itself.
North America on top
It's safe to say that North America is the most dominant region in Apex Legends at the moment. For the second time this year, NA has dominated the international scene, this time with six of the 11 qualified teams that made it into the top 10. And to make it even sweeter, the top five teams of the ALGS Split 2 Playoffs came from NA, which goes to show just how far apart the level of competition is at the moment.
Of course, it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine for the NA region as that meant that five teams didn't make it into the top 10. NRG finished second in the ALGS Split 1 Playoffs but this time could only muster as much as 11th overall in the finals. FURIA Esports finished second at the ALGS Championship last year but failed to make it past the first round of the lower bracket on day two. Even 100 Thieves, who finished third at last year's championship, could only get as far as 14th.
And even though NA still dominated the top five standings overall, the likes of FaZe Clan, OpTic Gaming, and XSET found themselves in the second round of the lower bracket. This goes to show that there are still some consistency issues with many teams from the region. Then again, two of the three teams did attend their first LAN together so the chemistry and foundation have already been laid to work on.
NA's domination as a whole should be seen as successful on the international stage, but it's only the likes of TSM and DarkZero who know what victory tasted like. The rest of the top 10 saw 2 EMEA teams in the form of Alliance and Pioneers while APAC North and South had one contender each with Fnatic and Moist Esports respectively.
Another blow to EMEA and APAC
With North America picking up yet another LAN victory, one must wonder what the other regions have to do to keep up. While both regions did manage to get two teams each into the top 10, this was a step down from the Split 1 Playoffs where both EMEA and APAC had three teams each instead. However, it was during the group stage matches that both regions excelled in with APAC getting seven teams through to the upper bracket and EMEA with five.
Even on the final day with the top 20 teams, both regions still managed to pull impressive numbers. APAC as a whole managed to have seven teams in the grand final with two from APAC South and five from APAC North. As for EMEA, there were only four teams in the grand final. And out of all the juggernauts in these two regions, it was Pioneers from EMEA and Moist Esports from APAC South that managed to go the distance at sixth and seventh respectively.
However, this doesn't necessarily mean that these regions are washed. Despite only finishing in ninth, Alliance was one of the favourites heading into the finals after they came in second during the group stage. Pioneers finished 19th in the group stage and even got knocked down to the lower bracket where they had to play an additional six games, and still finished sixth with a round win in the finals as well.
APAC also had plenty of contenders who just had a bad day with Moist Esports being one of them. The team from APAC South finish at 18th during the group stage but unlike Pioneers, Moist managed to top the upper bracket round ahead of teams like TSM and Alliance. They would then go on to finish seventh in the finals, which is an unbelievable accomplishment for the Australian org.
As for APAC North, you only have to look as far as Fnatic, who was one of the crowd favourites during the tournament. Their creative strategies and gameplay would constantly have fans on the edge of their seats, which was evident during the final group stage match that saw the boys from Japan pull off one of the best rotations in recent ALGS history.
An interesting meta indeed
The ALGS has been put through various metas over the years and the Split 2 Playoffs showcased just how much it has shaped over the years. Out of the 24 available legends, only Mirage and Ash found zero game time over the four days. And out of the 22 legends that were played, Seer was undoubtedly the star of the ALGS Split 2 Playoffs, being chosen for 737 games with a 61.42 per cent pick rate.
Bangalore comes in second with one of the reasons being that her kit is perfectly balanced. However, it's also due to her smoke being the best counter to the controller-heavy lobby of the ALGS. Of the top 10 on the kill leaderboard, seven of them are controller players. Lastly, Horizon would round up the top three of top-picked legends with her overall kit being the perfect tool for the team's main fragger.
Catalyst also makes an appearance, being the fourth-most picked legend, which speaks volumes of her kit given that other newer legends like Ballistic, Vantage, and Mad Maggie were exceedingly underwhelming during the tournament. Both Ballistic and Vantage made one appearance apiece while Mad Maggie had four. The only other outlier was Newcastle, who was only the 11th-most picked legend, right after Loba.
As for the guns, it was SMGs that dominated Worlds Edge and Storm Point with the Prowler being the number one gun with the most kills at 846. Given its five-burst spread that deals massive damage when accurate, it's understandable why the Prowler is the go-to for almost every pro-ALGS player. The Nemesis, one of the newer ARs in the game comes in second with 390 kills, which is closely followed by the CAR at 379, also one of the newer SMGs added to the game in recent years.
The R-99 comes in at third with 226 kills, which goes to show that it's still one of the best one-clip SMGs in the game. While it didn't gain as many kills as the CAR, this could be down to the fact that the R-99 is still in the crafter rotation, which makes it slightly more troublesome to acquire. The Flatline AR rounds up the top five list with 192 kills.
All Eyes on the ALGS Championship
With the conclusion of the ALGS Split 2 Playoffs, many teams will have one eye centred on the world championship, which will take place from September 6 - 10 at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England. 30 teams have already been confirmed due to their playoff points with only 10 spots left for the last-chance qualifier (LCQ) teams.
Each region will have two open spots in the LCQs and will be determined this weekend during the final round of games. This will be the final chance for teams that are still in their respective LCQs to earn a slot in the ALGS Championship in a little over a month's time. And with the current season coming to an end, fans can expect a huge shake-up for season 18, which will probably release in just a few short weeks.
Is it Esports Ready?
The ALGS is now in its third official year as a competitive esports and while both Respawn and EA have said that Apex Legends is "esports ready", the game is still far from it after what happened during the recent LAN. Over the four-day tournament, many teams went through various bugs and issues within the game.
OpTic Gaming was one of the teams that got dealt a huge blow to the final standings after one of their players, Mark "Dropped" Thees' PC crashed midway through the game. To make matters worse, this also affected FaZe in the overall standings as it was XSET who benefited from Dropped's PC crash. His death gave XSET an additional point as they were granted the kill and they would go on to finish just one point above FaZe, which gave extra playoff points as well as an additional $20,000 in the warchest.
And what makes the entire situation such a debacle was the fact that Dropped had asked for the match to be paused, only to be denied by the admins. The same admins who paused an earlier round during the start of the match. The fact that it couldn't be done again just goes to show the inconsistency surrounding the ALGS at the moment, something that shouldn't have happened in an "esports-ready" video game with a million-dollar prize pool.
Other notable incidents that also happened during the ALGS Split 2 Playoffs included ganbare otousan's Shin "Jusna" Yong-ju getting stuck inside a deathbox after looting. Despite his teammate, Park "JungHee" Jung-hee trying to empty all the contents in the deathbox to make it disappear, they did not have enough time as the circle was closing. This would eventually cost ganbare, who lost two members due to the bug.
NRG was another team that got griefed by the game itself, although it wasn't as horrible as OpTic or ganbare. The team's IGL, Christopher "sweetdreams" Sexton was crushed by an invisible barrier while on one of the ascending bridges at Countdown. Thankfully for NRG, no other team was nearby at that time so they were able to revive sweetdreams without having to worry about a third-party.
